For my internship experience, I was fortunate to be offered a 6 month role on the UNICEF Communications for Development (C4D) team in the Program Division. The C4D section’s primary purpose in supporting the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2018-2021 is to promote, engage, empower and create positive behavior and social change in communities in the humanitarian context for children. The project I got to work on was a USAID grant by the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance that strived to improve the global capacity and foster partnerships for social science for community engagement in humanitarian emergencies. The goal of this project was to address the need in humanitarian action for the participation of affected communities in effective communication, community engagement and accountability of relief work.
From early morning meetings, I got to be exposed to the WCAR and ESAR UNICEF regional offices, COVID-19 RCCE Collective Service, WHO, IASC and other partners who are contributing to creating the social data tools in the grant. To support my supervisors, I worked alongside another intern based in Mexico to perform program operation tasks, research, and attend conferences on global RCCE response actions in COVID-19. I was excited to be engaged in the design of an M&E framework and support the development of various work products. During this unprecedented time in the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked remotely from my parent’s home which gave me more flexibility and time to balance the internship and schoolwork. Coming from a lack of public health background, I had a great experience so far working alongside the team who has supported my continued learning and growth of understanding the challenges faced by the global public health sector in community engagement and social science in a humanitarian context.
Alice Lu graduated with an MPA/MAIR degree and is currently working as an Accounting Associate for Kiva Microfunds.